Archive for June 12th, 2010

To consider what happens in a civilized society when 10,000 tigers roam freely, with safeguards disabled––here are a few examples! There has been a rise of tiger attacks in locations across the U.S. in the last decade. In 2005 in Minneapolis four tigers seriously attacked a woman who was trying to clean out their cage; and a teen-ager needed multiple skin grafts after a tiger scratch. In 2004 around the world, 40 people, including 13 children, were mauled by tigers and other big cats and 4 were killed.

Several deaths and injuries have occurred in recent years in zoos in the U.S., such as in San Francisco, New York, etc. And the full extend of injuries sustained when a tiger attacked Roy Horn of Siegfried and Roy during their nightclub act have never been made public.

Big Cat Rescue reports that in the last ten years in the U.S., 16 adults and five children have been killed by big cats and 197 have been mauled. Outside of the U.S., big cats killed 69 people, and mauled 104. These figures include tigers, lions and other large felines. In 2006, the Journal of Internal Medicine estimated that 50 million people around the world were infected with zoonotic diseases since 2000, and 78,000 died.

In the American Surgeon medical journal in 2007, a group of doctors report: “Tigers, as well as other large predators, are being held in private settings with increasing frequency. Unregulated private “zoos” are cropping up in many rural and suburban settings across the country. The number of attacks from captive predators also is on the rise. This case highlights the potentially violent and aggressive nature of wild animals held in captivity.”
Their report continues, “ . . . . . The size and strength of these animals, and their tendency to attack their victim’s neck, make the injuries they inflict unique and distinct . . . .” Their report is on a 37-year old woman attacked by a Siberian tiger in a rural Minnesota private zoo.

The doctors state openly: “This case underscores the dangerous nature of feral predators. Tiger attacks may occur anywhere because of an increasing number of these feral animals kept in unlicensed, unregulated “private zoos” or as pets. This attack represents the second tiger attack victim treated at our institution in the last 4 years and the third known attack from this particular private zoo. The frequency of these attacks in a rural environment poses a significant public health risk . . .

Freely roaming tigers generally try to avoid people as long as they find food in wilderness areas. But citizens in Texas and Florida increasingly report seeing tigers moving around in back woods areas. Tigers and other wild animals in those two states will be discussed in future blogs. For now, with Armageddon approaching, readers need to consider possibilities of what could happen when 10,00 tigers, and thousands of other wild animals, move unhindered across the land. Those possibilities should lead to prayer and to influencing local and national governments to stop the multiplication of wild animals in the U.S. Wearing wholesale Christian sweat shirts is a good way to start those conversations.